High-tech State Map Planned By Museum

October 02, 1992|By LINDA B. HIRSH; Courant Staff Writer

WEST HARTFORD — Computerized images will someday flicker across a one-of-akind wall-size relief map of Connecticut, flashing information ranging from the location of hazardous radon to the effect car emissions are having on the environment.

The map will be made possible in part by a $639,000 National Science Foundation grant that will help buy enough maps and environmental exhibits on the state to fill 2,400 square feet of the Science Museum of Connecticut.

Officials said they will seek funds from corporations to match the grant given to the 65-year-old private, nonprofit museum this week. That would bring the total to more than $1 million -- purchasing a display for Canton's Roaring Brook Nature Center and eight others that would circulate among schools across the state.

The idea of the collection called "State of the Environment" is to see Connecticut by means of maps that people can play with, said Michael Jordan, the museum's deputy director.

The 15-by-20-foot relief map, the centerpiece of the collection, should give museum visitors a clear idea of the state's topography, Jordan said.

"It is beautiful in itself, but it will not just hang there," he said.

"The key is a laser projection system. The map becomes a screen for environmental stories and statistics. You can project words, pictures, changing animation and data points right on them there hills." Jordan said the grant will take the museum "into the big leagues" by offering a model collection for other museums in the country.

Exhibits from the collection would be tested at the building on Trout Brook Drive. They would debut in 1995 in a proposed 64,000-square-foot facility in East Hartford.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued wetlands permits for the riverfront site last spring. Officials, who have been drumming up local corporate funding, will launch a public campaign to add to the $6 million state grant for the building. It is estimated the

entire project will cost $26 million.

The centerpiece map would be adjacent to a 100-foot scale model of the Connecticut River, set near a window overlooking the river. Jordan said the museum already has worked with Resource Planning Management of New Haven on the map's database showing demographics such as income and education levels of state residents and its population distribution. The museum's director of environmental sciences, Hank Gruner, who helped Jordan formulate the proposal for the grant, added 100 environmental factors to the base, among them, several high radon sites in the Glastonbury uplands as well as groundwater ratings, solid waste disposal sites and rabies cases by town.

"It really gives us a chance to tell a story that a lot of people don't understand -- how the numbers are generated and what's behind the statistics," Gruner said.

People can work a control panel to get information. A computerized image can show them, for instance, how the forest cover has grown from a low of 33 percent in the mid-1800s to the current 60 percent of the state's surface.

It can show that except for Glastonbury, central Connecticut towns have few homes testing above federal limits for radon and that the area has the lowest forest cover in the state. It also can show transportation details, such as the effect of the state's 3 million registered cars on the air.

While the centerpiece will take up about one-eighth of the space, other exhibits will round out the examination of the state's land.

One component is devoted to measurements. For instance, a map on ozone levels shows seasonal changes. A hands-on display allows the visitor to create real ozone in a chamber and monitor changes.

A third component will cover controversies, such as the role of government regulation